


Winner Takes All

by Fight_Surrender



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: A Friendly Wager, Are You Allowed to Bet on Patients?, Baz is a specialist - boarded surgeon, Baz is the GOAT, But Baz is Kind of Hot, Enemies to Lovers, Fancy Lingerie, It's not what you think, M/M, Marijuana References, Simon Snow is Just Trying to Do His Job, Simon and Baz are veterinarians, Simon is an intern, Slightly Jargony Surgery Descriptions, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Bad at Feelings, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is Gay for Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch Is a Jerk, Veterinary Clinic, Veterinary Medicine, alternative universe - veterinary, funny i hope, they work at the same hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29435868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fight_Surrender/pseuds/Fight_Surrender
Summary: Simon Snow is a lowly intern at a prestigious veterinary teaching hospital with lowly intern problems: abysmal pay, deplorable hours, mental fatigue, and the fact that Dr. T. Basilton Pitch is an insufferable prick.When Simon and Dr. Pitch make a friendly wager over the outcome of one of his patients, it throws him for a loop that may or may not make him rethink his opinions about the dark and ridiculously handsome surgeon.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88
Collections: Snowbaz Sweethearts Fic Exchange 2021





	Winner Takes All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gettingby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gettingby/gifts).



> Hello Hello! Here is my Sweetheart Exchange fic for @gettingby. You asked for a funny AU, hopefully this fits the bill. I am a veterinarian, so some of this is pulled from personal experience. (I, however, did not do an internship. Nor have I experienced an office romance.) There is a bit of medical jargon, and there is a brief description of some GI organs during the surgery scene. I tried to keep it un-gross, but I have a really high tolerance for gross so I guess proceed with caution if you're super squeamish.
> 
> So many thanks to Waterwings, Giishu and Tbazzsnow for the beta reads and cheerleading. I definitely could not have done this without all of you <3
> 
> This probably could/should have a teen rating, but I've decided to err on the side of caution ratings-wise. There are bad words and some implied sexiness, but it's highly not particularly suggestive.

Every object in the universe attracts every other object with a force along a line joining them. 

-Newton's universal law of gravitation

**Baz**

How am I supposed to work under these conditions? Interns should not be this beautiful. It’s an insult, a travesty. He’s needy and bumbling and inordinately annoying, yet so fucking gorgeous that my heart aches to look at him. 

He is also kind, earnest, loyal, and a brilliant diagnostician. He’s perfect. I hate him. 

Fuck, there he is. I duck into the food room. I glance around at the shelves of tinned food and dispensers. The air smells like stale meat.

“What are you doing here?” croaks Kaylie, or Kylie, or Callie the kennel girl, eyes huge. I can’t keep their names straight; kennel staff are a revolving door. No point in getting attached if they’re going to leave in a month. They’re all afraid of me anyway.

“Ah, just picking up some prescription food for the Smith dog,” I stutter. Who am I right now? Flustered and tongue tied is not my aesthetic. I’m a Pitch. A surgeon. I don’t _fluste_ r. Fuck Simon Snow. (I want to.)

Kaylie/Kylie/Callie picks up two bowls of food and slowly backs out of the room, never taking her eyes off me. Like I’m a vampire about to drain her dry. They probably shouldn’t be _that_ afraid of me. I make a mental note to be nicer to the kennel staff.

I peek out the window only to see Simon Snow leaned against the wall chatting animatedly with fucking Kaylie/Kylie/Callie. Simon’s single ridiculously adorable dimple is fully engaged, and the kennel girl is all heart eyes, wide smiles, and casual hair flips.

This will not do.

I burst out of the food room. “We don’t pay you to flirt with the kennel staff, Snow,” I sneer and snatch the chart he has clutched to his chest like a fair maiden. I glance at the signalment and chief complaint.

“Vomiting Labrador—foreign body obstruction.” I smack the chart back into his chest. “There you go, I solved it for you. Now go make nice with the client.”

Snow’s features go stormy. Even his scowl is beautiful, all freckles and fire. “You don’t pay me anything, mate. And I haven’t seen the patient yet, so I’ll hold off on the wild assumptions, thanks.”

“Foreign body,” I repeat and exit the scene as dramatically as possible. Taking care to emphasize the delectable nature of my derriere. (Who doesn’t love a little stretch in their scrubs?) I may or may not have casually flipped my hair. 

Yes, I’m a disaster.

**Simon**

I may not know much. I’m a lowly intern and my brain is awash in a literal avalanche of useless facts, but very little usable information. (Seriously, I feel like I’m drowning in the sheer volume of all the shit I don’t know.) My mind hurts from constantly plumbing its depths to figure out what the fuck I’m doing, but there’s one thing I do know with pure certainty.

Doctor T. Basilton Pitch is an arrogant fucking twat.

I think I’ll make a list.

Things I hate about Dr. Pitch:

  1. His stupid shiny hair. I bet he uses individual shampoo and conditioner. Who’s got time for that?
  2. The way his trousers skim his thighs. Why can’t he wear baggy scrubs like a normal person?
  3. His constant sneery sneer. It’s like he only has one emotion- chronically annoyed. He looks like he smells something bad. All the time. But only aimed at me. He seems to be perfectly civil, even charming with everyone else. Seriously, what the hell?
  4. How brilliant he is. He’s practically a genius savant. He’s a wickedly talented surgeon, but he also nails medicine cases with zero effort. Even the consultants consult with him.
  5. He is also fit. This goes against all the laws of nature. You can’t be that good looking and smart at once, it messes with the space-time continuum. Therefore, he must be bat shit crazy. That is the only way to bring balance to the equation.
  6. He’s my age. He represents everything I could have accomplished if I had gotten my shit together sooner. I thought microbiology was my calling. Nobody mentioned that working in a lab is mind numbingly boring. So here I am, a thirty-year-old baby vet. 
  7. I hate how he never misses an opportunity to humiliate me, but then will stop whatever he’s doing to carefully and thoroughly explain some random thing I’m struggling with. It’s like, amidst all the slings and arrows, he drops a clinical gem that’s so helpful and perfect that it makes me want to cry. Such an arse.
  8. His slate grey (with little threads of blue winding through each iris) eyes. Who has grey eyes? Maybe he’s not even human. Maybe he’s a vampire or something. I suppose they could be weird color contacts, but why bother? Anyway, grey is not a natural eye color. Something is wrong with him.



_Doctor Snow, your next patient is in exam room seven_. The static blare of the intercom interrupts my mental rant.

I scan the chart one more time: two-year-old, female, spayed yellow lab. Acute vomiting and lethargy over the last twenty-four hours. I mean, it’s probably a foreign body obstruction, but I refuse to let Dr. Pitch be right. 

Grabbing the door handle, I take a deep breath and put on my best _“I’m totally competent and absolutely know what I’m doing despite being a lowly intern_ ,” smile and walk in to meet my client. Upon entering the room, the Lab gambols over and jams his nose into my crotch.

“Er,” I say, trying to look professional while casually pushing seventy-five pounds of wagging Labrador joy away from my bits. “Hi, I’m Doctor Snow and I will be taking care of—I glance back at my chart-- _Sativa_ today.”

The couple in the room glance at each other sheepishly. They’re so heteronormative and average that I’m fairly certain I will never recognize them in another setting, ever. She’s got long brown hair swept into a pony tail. Pretty without being intimidating, casually sporting the requisite athleisure wear. A large solitary diamond glitters from a platinum band on her finger. The guy is your typical vaguely fit in a totally generic way bloke, wearing an Adidas T-shirt and trackie bottoms.

“That’s a unique name,” I ask, “Where does it come from?” Sativa has proceeded to lean heavily on me in an attempt to get me to scratch her back and she’s almost knocking me off my feet.

Generic girl blushes prettily and stammers, “Um, it’s a strain of marijuana.”

“Okay, right,” I stammer right back. _Did not see that one coming._ Apparently, I’m not up on cannabinoid subspecies. Add that to the inordinately long list of things that I didn’t know that I now know, through the most embarrassing means possible.

 _Be professional Simon. You’re the expert here. Act like it. You will not spiral about why the fuck these spectacularly dull people named their dog after weed. You have a job to do._ I clear my throat. “So, what’s going on with Sativa?”

After the requisite clinical song and dance where I listen to them rattle off all the things Google told them might be wrong with the dog, I take her to the back to run tests, rolling my eyes at their wild theories. (No, she’s not sick from eating one grape last week.) 

Dr. Pitch passes me in the hallway as I wind my way to the treatment area. “Foreign body,” he singsongs as he glides by. He’s so graceful, even in scrubs and overpriced clogs. He moves like oil on water. 

Add that to my hate list.

I glance down at Sativa as she bounces at my side, joyfully sniffing every crotch she encounters. Not to wish ill on my patients, but how cool would it be if she had pancreatitis, Leptospirosis, even mushroom toxicity? Anything to prove Pitch wrong. In the name of all that is good and right in this world, I fervently hope that maybe, just once, karma will deign to smile on me, rather than the usual shit. I deserve just one win. 

" _This dog looks way too perky to have a systemic illness_ ,” whispers the clinical voice of reason in the back of my head. Fuck off, voice.

Half an hour, three technicians, and a bit of a wrestling match later, we get x-rays of Sativa. I forgot to shave this morning, I realize, feeling the patchy stubble across my face as I look at the radiographs on the monitor.

“Foreign body,” murmurs a posh, velvety baritone just over my shoulder. I startle and find Dr. Pitch well within my personal space. How does he do that? Chalk up more evidence for the non-human theory. I’m a little weak in the knees. Adrenaline or vampire thrall?

Unfortunately, Dr. Pitch is right. Sativa’s bloodwork was resoundingly boring. No evidence to support my wild diagnostic theories.

“See those metallic densities there, just distal to the duodenum?” His breath is warm in my ear; it’s doing things to me. I step away and will my heartbeat to slow its staccato beat. _He is the enemy, Simon Snow. The ridiculously fit, smart, talented enemy._

“Yeah?” I answer. Proud of how composed I sound.

“That’s a bra closure. This dog ate lingerie.” 

“No way,” I exclaim. Nobody’s that good. Fabric doesn’t show up on x-rays and those little metal hooks and loops could be anything. The dog is definitely obstructed, I won’t argue that, but…

“Want to bet, Snow?” There it is, his signature smirk.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“A gentleman’s wager. Dinner.” He’s looking down his sizable nose at me. That’s his thing, his one imperfection. There’s a bump, about three-fourths of the way down. Wonder who put that there?

“Dinner?” _What the hell is happening here?_

“Let’s open this dog up,” he proclaims as if he’s talking about opening a door, or suitcase and not major surgery. “If the obstruction is caused by sexy lingerie, you buy me dinner. If I’m wrong, which I’m not, I’ll buy.”

I latch on to the most useless piece of information in that whole exchange. “You want to go to dinner with me? I thought you hated me.”

“I don’t hate you Snow, I just think you’re a moron. Get with the program.”

“You are _such_ a cocky bastard.” My eyes widen when I realize I actually said that out loud. This would be a good time for a global warming sinkhole to open up beneath me and send me sliding into the bowels of the planet.

Dr. Pitch’s face breaks into a dark and manic grin reminiscent of Joaquin’s Joker. “Get those release forms signed, Snow. See you in OR 2.” He saunters away with a spring in his step, like he didn’t just take my brain and flip it around on its axis.

Did he just ask me out? Friendly bet? Is he capable of friendly? Is this a plot? Am I awake? Is this another work nightmare?

“Oh for fucks sake,” Phillipa, one of the technicians, growls as the geriatric poodle she’s walking squats and takes a horrifically scented dump in the hallway.

Pretty sure I’m awake. 

Any question I have about the reality of my circumstances fades when I reenter the exam room. The clients are holding hands and making googly eyes at each other, oozing mushy Lifetime Channel romance on the cat posters. I clear my throat to fully embrace the awkward vibe, and startle them from their love fest. Then I fill them in on the plan. Well, the surgery part. Not the fucked up dinner date bet with Dr. Pitch. I strongly suspect I look proper manic as I fake-cheerfully send the happy couple away to the waiting room. 

As I wander to surgery, I start spinning again. One way or another, I’m going out to dinner with Basilton Pitch. We’re _betting_ on a patient. Is that even ethical? Am I unethical? I’m just a baby vet and now I’m embroiled in a hospital love scandal with my supervisor. _Oh my god Simon, this is just two blokes having drinks in a pub, not a torrid affair. Get it together._ But what if?

Why am I thrilled?

 _Get. It. Together. Simon_.

**Baz**

What the hell did I do? In a flash of either brilliance or sheer lunacy, I asked Snow out to dinner. It just slipped out before my brain could rein it in. Almost like another part of my body had taken over my mental facilities.

Well, the horse is out of the barn, so to speak. I redirect my thoughts from below my scrub ties back to my brain. Surgery with Snow. This could either be a lovely collaboration, synchronicity, a dance-like melding of mind and action, or an unmitigated disaster.

Simon Snow touches the faucet with his freshly sterilized hand when I walk into the scrub suite.

“You just broke sterility, Snow. Start over.”

Snow growls prettily and violently re-starts the multistep process of scrubbing in for surgery. His mask and surgical cap (custom, blue fabric printed with bright red flaming dragons) obscure the majority of his face, highlighting his startlingly blue eyes. Faint purple smudges and fine lines belie the fact that he’s exhausted. The life of an intern is austere and difficult. I want to run my thumbs across his cheekbones and kiss him to sleep in my arms. In my bed.

Closing my eyes and wrenching my thoughts back to the case at hand, I finish my own (proper) scrub and back into the surgery suite. The soft beep and hiss of the anesthesia equipment greets me, along with a handful of nurses and technicians. All I can see of our patient is a series of drapes and hoses. Could be a human or wombat under there, the organs are basically the same. My job is to fix them.

**Simon**

_Of course,_ he catches me screwing up scrub technique, because the universe hates me. I know for a fact that this isn’t how they scrub in private practice. Ten swipes on every single surface of every single finger, then palm, fingertips, whatever. I got it mostly right. This is harassment is what it is. I’m being harassed.

I’m in a right strop when I enter the surgery suite. All I can see of the patient beyond the drapes is a light tan rectangle of shaved skin. All I can see of Basilton Pitch beyond his bouffant surgical cap and mask, are long black lashes rimming striking grey eyes. He looks like he’s wearing eyeliner, but it’s just the lashes. They’re beautiful, really. The eyes. The sound of my throat clearing cuts the silence of the room.

“Dr. Pitch,” I say, sidling to one side of our patient. 

“Dr. Snow,” he greets me with surprising civility. “Are you ready to run this surgery?”

A cold flush washes from my head to my bowels. “Pardon?” 

“This is all you.” I can see his smirk, even if it’s just the eye part. “I’m just here to keep you from killing this nice young Labrador.”

“Well, that’s encouraging, thank you, Dr. Pitch.”

“Please, we’re about to explore this dog’s innards in search of sexy lingerie together. We’re colleagues. Call me Baz.”

My brain feels like it’s free falling to the antiseptic-clean floor. I search his face for any indication that he’s taking the piss and find nothing. Just calm, curious. “Colleagues?” I stammer. “I’ve never done this before.” _Any of this_.

“I’m a doctor, you’re a doctor.” He digs into the surgery pack and produces a scalpel, holding it out to me, handle first. “Now, let’s fix this dog so we can go eat. I’m hungry.”

I accept the proffered blade and look down at the expanse of unbroken skin in front of me. _Breathe Simon, you can do this._ One of the nurses catches Dr. Pitch’s ( _Baz’s?_ ) eye, tips her chin up at him and clicks on a speaker at the back of the room. Sabotage, by the Beastie boys fills the room with raging guitar chords. My brows scrunch in confusion at the sudden cacophony.

“What?” Dr. Pitch—Baz questions with a gleam in his eye. “This is my _I Am the GOAT_ playlist. Perfect for motivating uncertain interns. Nothing can go wrong with a dose of Beastie Boys and White Stripes.”

Shaking my head with wonder, I make my incision. Baz quietly offers suggestions as I progress through the exploratory. His calm demeanor slowly dampens the raging inferno of anxiety and fear swirling through the forest of my mind. I’m in control of this procedure, Baz is a safety net. A guide to help me succeed. A surgical Sherpa.

We find the obstruction just south of the duodenum. The first thing you notice when removing a foreign body is the smell. One would think something fresh from the GI tract would smell like poop, but it doesn’t. The odor is almost worse—it’s raw and primordial, almost sinister. It takes Baz and I considerable wrangling and multiple enterotomies to extricate a tangled mass of green-black material. The nurses’ eyes light up with glee as they scurry off with the prize safely ensconced in a metal bowl. Everyone knows the best part of a foreign body removal is the game of identifying the offending material. Disgusting smell aside, nobody’s happy until the thing has been washed and assembled and everyone provides their best guess to be confirmed by the client.

Halfway through closing my sizeable incision, Kylie bursts into the surgical suite. “Look at this amazingness,” she positively squeals, brandishing a slightly chewed lace and tulle bodysuit with garter straps hanging below like wayward noodles.

“Are those—?” I stammer.

“Marijuana leaves?” Baz breathes, an edge of humor breaking his composure.

Intricately embroidered marijuana leaves weave across the entire garment, tangling amongst themselves at bodily strategic locations. Delicate buds dance sweetly among the branches.

“She ate it whole,” I marvel. I think I’ve reached my weirdness limit for the day. “Just sucked it down like spaghetti.”

“Ha!” Baz barks, snapping me back to reality. “Have fun sharing that with the clients. That might put a damper on their plans this evening.” He slips off his gloves and flicks them into the used surgery pack with a flourish. “You and I have plans this evening as well. I’ll meet you at Scorpio’s at eight o’clock.”

Fucking hell. Marijuana themed shenanigans with clients, and dubious dates with my superior, are not what I had in mind when I set upon a career in veterinary medicine. I close my eyes and steel myself for the rest of the day's awkwardness.

***

**Simon**

Scorpio’s is the poshest restaurant in town. I absolutely can’t afford this place. Every surface glitters at me ominously as I enter the grand foyer. Crystal chandeliers, burnished mahogany and chrome make a mockery of my impoverished student status. The hostess, a tall brunette with blood red lipstick glides me to a private booth. It’s more of an alcove, really, tucked away in a wash of dim lighting and plush velvet.

Baz grins at me, holding a crystal glass filled with deep burgundy wine. “Hello, Snow.” He’s wearing a charcoal grey suit adorned with aqua blue and purple flowers. He looks effervescent, incredible, gorgeous.

“Hi Dr. P—Baz,” I stutter. I’m wearing black slacks and a cobalt blue shirt. I know I’m wildly underdressed, but I also know I look fantastic, so I refuse to stress about this. “Unless you’re ordering nothing beyond that bottle of wine, I can’t pay for this meal.” I might as well clear that up now.

“You can’t even afford this bottle of wine, Snow.” Baz drawls, “I’ve got this.

“What exactly is _this_ , Baz?”

“Dinner?” Baz responds innocently.

“Is this a date?” I stare at him and place my hands on the table. The restaurant is packed for a Tuesday, couples everywhere.

“Well it _is_ Valentine’s day.”

I suddenly feel very hot. “What the actual fuck? Are you trying to seduce me? Is that even ethical?”

“Do you want to be seduced?” He grins at me like a Disney villain, practically twirling his moustache. (He doesn’t have a moustache.)

The waiter decides this is the perfect moment to descend and regale us with the celebratory and ridiculously priced prix fixe menu. I’m too ruffled to listen and Baz is paying anyway with his fancy specialist salary, so I order two of whatever they are and wave him away.

Baz has his elbow on the table and his chin pillowed in his hand, watching me melt down with a look of casual bemusement. He doesn’t say anything, I think he’s waiting for me to continue my rant, so I do.

“You can’t just sweep me off to a swanky restaurant on a bet and call it a date. You’re my boss.”

“I’m not your boss, Possibelf, the Chief Resident is. I’m just an advisor.” His demeanor is calm and reasonable, like he’s talking a wild animal off a cliff. _That doesn’t make sense. Even my internal dialogue can’t think straight_.

I press on. “I’m sure there are no fraternizing rules in the handbook. Clearly this is fraternizing.”

“Simon.”

That stops me in my tracks. My name in his lush voice. For a moment I get lost in the tarnished silver of his eyes.

“It’s just dinner,” he says softly. A stab of disappointment hits me in the vicinity of my spleen. I obviously have zero poker face because then he smirks and says, “With a side of seduction.” 

“ _Such_ , a cocky bastard,” I growl, picking up my wine glass and taking a sip. I’m no connoisseur, generally sticking to cheap beer, but the wine is good. Rich and complex. Like Baz. _Good god that’s cheesy, get a grip, Simon. Don’t be blinded by how fit and brilliant he is. Make this difficult._ ““You’ve been torturing me for months, then suddenly you expect me to magically forget what an insufferable git you are?”

“Ok, yes, about that—” His arrogant veneer has cracked slightly. He purses his lips and looks away, “I may have overdone it a bit with the hair-pulling.” Eyes back on mine, open and sincere, “Sorry.”

I catch my fingers in a tangle, running them through my hair. “You are unbelievable.”

“Look,” Baz says, all sincerity and hotness, “can we just start over?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

He holds out his right hand, “Hello, I’m Baz Pitch, general surgeon with poor flirting skills.”

I can’t help myself; I grin then take his hand. His grip is warm and strong. Long, elegant fingers wrap around mine. “Simon Snow, somewhat confused intern.” _This whole situation is ridiculous, but kind of wonderful._

He smiles back, and it’s incandescent. “Nice to meet you, Simon.” He leans in toward me; I can smell his cologne, cedar and spice. I want to bathe in it. 

I lean in too. “Nice to meet you as well, Baz.”

***

**6 Months Later**

**Simon**

“Dr. Pitch, I need a surgical consult on the Kunzer dog,” I match Baz’s gait as he barrels down the hallway to his next case.

“What,” he grumbles, “that’s just a run of the mill blown disk.”

I shove him into the nearest supply closet and snog him into a stack of Elizabethan collars. The plastic rings snap and pop in protest of our activities.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Baz gasps, when he gets the chance.

“I know,” I say, sliding my hands under his scrub top, feeling the dip and rise of his spine. “My schedule is bollocks. That’s why you should move in with me.”

Baz pulls away. “Did you just ask me to move in with you during a supply closet snog?”

I tighten my arms around him, “Yeah, I never get to see you. I feel like I’m always either working or sleeping or doing mundane life activities like—showering or eating.” I nuzzle into his neck, smelling the bite of his cologne. “I want to do my mundane life activities with you.”

He kisses me soundly, then rests his forehead on mine. “I love you, but I refuse to live in your microscopic flat. You’re moving into mine.”

I smile against his lips, “Excellent. My evil plot to upgrade into your luxurious flat worked.”

Baz slides his hands down the waistband of my pants and squeezes my arse, grinding against me. Breath molten, he whispers into the shell of my ear, “You don’t know plotting, my love. What time does your shift end today?”

“Eleven,” I breathe. Are we about to have sex in the supply closet? _If we get caught, we’ll be sacked. I hadn’t intended for it to go quite this far, but I think I’m willing to take the chance._

“Come round to mine after, I’ll be naked and waiting.” He kisses my cheek and backs away. “Sorry about—that,” he smirks, waving a hand in the general direction of my very obvious erection. “I’ll take care of it tonight.” He blows me a kiss and backs out of the room.

“Bloody hell,” I grumble, buttoning my lab coat to cover things down south. _We’re moving in together_. My heart thumps a deep bass in my chest. I can’t stop grinning as I wade back into the hospital to finish my day.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering, that body suit was based off of this lovely piece from [Thistle and Spire](https://www.thistleandspire.com/collections/bodysuits/products/brooklyn-haze-bodysuit).
> 
> Come say hi on


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